


Know the Score

by thebodyeclectic



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Smallville, Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:42:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebodyeclectic/pseuds/thebodyeclectic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post TT#25.  AU Project Scion was Lionel's brainchild.  This is the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know the Score

**Author's Note:**

> Could be set in the same Elseworld as my previous Liz Luthor story but can be read as a separate Elseworld as well. Dealing with the fall out of Kon's mind control by Lionel.
> 
> Borrows heavily from the TT #24-26, the Outsiders #24-25.  This part is a re-imaging of a scene in TT #26.  This piece will be appended with snippets detailing events that occurred before and after this particular incident
> 
> Girl!Lex inspired by joyfulgirl41's [Falling is Like This](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=joyfulgirl41&keyword=Falling+Is+Like+This+Links&filter=all).
> 
> Written in 2007.

Kon hates it when adults start talking as if you aren’t even there.  He’s seen it happen enough times, has had it happen to him enough times to know that it sucks major balls.  It’s not even the fact that they’re ignoring you that makes it so irritating - it’s that they think you’re too stupid to understand or that you don’t have anything meaningful to contribute to the conversation.

Listening to Clark and Batman argue about the very things he’s been asking himself the past few months, Clark uncharacteristically sulky and Batman with his usual matter-of-fact brand of asshole-ness, just makes him want to break something.

Except he shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts at all.  He’s already done enough damage.  He’s already hurt every single person he cares about.  He doesn’t need to add to the mess.  It seems as if he’s always leaving destruction in his wake.  Maybe he was made for the sole purpose of breaking things, of undoing all the good –

Okay, nope.  Stop that train.

But it’s kind of really hard to get off once you’ve jumped on board.

He wants them to listen.  To understand.  He knows what he’s done.  He knows the consequences of his actions, knows how dangerous he is.  Hell, that’s the one recurring thought that’s been running through his head ever since he found out that he’s half-Luthor.

And speaking of Luthor, he sort of wishes that Clark and Batman would stay as calm as she is.  Kon glances off to the side where Liz Luthor’s leaning against one of the Bat’s many pieces of indistinguishable equipment, arms crossed across her chest, breathing calmly and not a hair out of place.

For a lady who’d just shot her father and paralyzed him for life less than twelve hours ago, she was eerily calm.

On second thought, Kon would rather listen Clark and Batman’s yelling.

“He’s dangerous.”

Batman’s saying that hurts a lot more than he thought it would.

“I didn’t mean it!”  He didn’t!  He would never hurt his friends, would never turn his back on good and side with Lionel fucking Luthor. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Liz Luthor move for the first time since they’d gotten to the Batcave.  And how awesome is it, being in the Batcave?  Under any other circumstance, Kon's sure he’d be dying from the sheer coolness of being there.

Batman keeps right on talking, like he didn’t even hear Kon.  The fucker.  “You have to be realistic, Clark.  That’s what he is.”

Kon scrubs a hand through his hair in frustration.  Of course he knows that one half of his DNA makes him susceptible to shiny fits of craziness.  He’s so fucking upset that he almost misses that Batman just called Clark _Clark_.  With Liz Luthor in the room.  

Yeah, sure, she helped take down the bad guy, and she did help him regain control of himself over Lionel Luthor’s programming, but she’s still like a supervillain.  Like one of the top three or five or something.  Kon’s sure there’s a list somewhere.  Nothing's making any sense at all.

Clark comes to his defense with a - wow, so not surprising - fucking platitude.  “He’s a boy trying to find his place in this world.”  Gee, Clark, over-identify much?

“He’s a weapon.”  Well, fuck you too, Bats.  “That grew up in a test tube.” 

Kon’s mouth falls open.  It's true and everything, but it still hurts like a bitch.

“He isn’t a weapon.” 

Clark and Batman turn to stare at Liz Luthor.  Hell, even Kon hits pause on his inner drama to gape.

Liz Luthor moves so that she’s standing between all three of them. Her back’s to Kon, but she’s clearly addressing all of them when she says, “He isn’t a weapon.  He’s a person - a teenager.” 

Batman looks as if he’s got something to say to that and Clark’s face is getting all worked up, but Luthor holds up a hand to silence them.  Kon’s getting a new role model in life, because Luthor so clearly wins at it.

“He’s clearly aware of what he’s been made to do.  He knows what he's capable of.  He isn’t a half-witted child who can't comprehend how dangerous he can be to the world at large.  You know this as much as anyone, Clark.”  She turns and gives Clark a _look_ and Clark’s face hardens.  Whoa, so totally made of awesome.  “He doesn’t need the both of you to keep rubbing his lack of agency in his face.  We all know how utterly devastating it is to feel powerless.” 

Batman and Clark remain silent.  Luthor turns and walks to Kon’s side, giving him a barely perceptible nod.  Kon doesn’t know why that makes him feel a tiny bit better.

Of course, the silence doesn’t last long.  “Be that as it may, we still don’t know where to put him.”  The reason they were all here in the first place.  Leave it to Batman to bring things back to the point. 

Clark pipes up with, “Well, there’s the Fortress…”

Oh, God.  Kon doesn’t want to live out the rest of his days there, doesn’t want to be trapped in some sort of crystal and ice prison for whoever knows how long.  But he knows it’s the safest place for him.  The Fortress is fucking smart; it’ll know how to contain him if he ever goes crazy again.  He won’t be able to see any of the people he cares about –

Who is he kidding?  He wouldn’t blame any of the Titans for not wanting to see him after that whole Lionel Luthor thing.  He wouldn’t want to see himself either.

Luthor brings him out of his thoughts.  She’s got an eyebrow raised while she says, “I doubt your mother would approve of that suggestion, Clark.” 

There are a million thoughts swirling through Kon’s head, not the least of which are, how does she know about the Fortress, about Aunt Martha, why is she coming to his aid all of a sudden, and how the fuck does she know _just_ which buttons to push when it comes to Clark?

No, Clark isn’t yelling, he isn’t turning red, but he shuts down whenever Liz Luthor speaks to him.  Like, no platitudes, no golly-gee-whiz, no forced politeness and no emotions written on his face _at all_.  But Kon knows that that stoicism doesn’t mean that there aren’t a thousand different thoughts and emotions rolling just beneath the surface.  For all that Clark would rather he not exist, they’ve got similar enough faces that Kon’s practiced that stoic I-am-above-this-shit face in the mirror hundreds of times to know that what Clark really wants to do is choke a bitch. 

It’s sort of interesting to watch, in the way that watching Kory rip into anyone who tramples on her garden is interesting to watch.  Except with less boob-jiggling action.  Because Luthor’s just looking at Clark with, like, half a smirk on her face.

And since it obviously can’t go on forever, Batman fulfills his patented role as a party-pooper by saying, “And where else would be a safe enough place for the clone, Liz?”

Luthor breaks her staring contest with Clark, lets her gaze slide over Batman before settling on Kon.  Kon’s kind of freaked, but whoa, he can’t help noticing that they’ve got, like, the same eye color, no wait, the same eyes.

“I want you to know that I had absolutely no idea that my father was responsible for the commission of a Superman clone.  But when you caught the media’s notice a few years back, I began to have my suspicions.”  

She’s looking him straight in the eyes and Kon can’t help noticing that they’re almost the same height.  She’s scarily intense but at least she isn’t treating him like some kind of idiot.

“The information was extremely difficult to obtain, but my father is an overbearing and difficult man and isn't the sort to inspire unwavering loyalty in his employees. When I let it be known that I was interested in information on ‘Superboy’, they were more than forthcoming.”

. . . Okay.  Kon doesn’t know where she's going with this and his eyes dart away from her intensity only to be faced with the alternative of the Bat being as unreadable as ever and Clark glaring at Luthor.  So, no help on those fronts, not that he was expecting any, but anything to divert Luthor’s frighteningly focused attention would have been appreciated.  Clark and Batman, though, seem content to sit and listen to whatever it is Luthor has to say.

“I can only imagine how it must have felt for you when you found out that you were part Luthor.  My father and I…” Luthor purses her lips.  “Our family will never be what one can call a paradigm of filial values.  We’ve a history of mental illness that I’m sure frightens the living hell out of you; megalomania, depression, insanity and standing reputations as bloody sharks.  And our position on your supervillain roster paints us as somewhat less than stellar.”

She smirks at him and Kon almost laughs.  He thinks the stress has gotten to him. 

“What I want you to know, Kon –” and Kon really likes how natural his name sounds coming from her mouth, not like the fake familiarity his teachers use, “ – is that whatever you decide, I will always be your mother, if only in the biological sense, and that you will always be welcome in my home.”

That's nice of her, except – “WHAT?” 

Luthor tilts her head in what could pass for confusion.

She isn’t the only one.  

Clark cuts in with, “ _You’re his other genetic donor?_ ”

Luthor looks at them like they’re idiots.  Which is so justifiably unfair, because Liz Luthor as his other parent?  What? 

“I thought Lionel fucking Luthor was my other genetic donor!”  Kon knows he looks like a puffer fish when he’s confused and huffy.  It isn’t an attractive face.  He wonders if he got it from Liz Luthor.

Clark nods along but Batman chips in.  “It would have been impossible.”

Clark and Kon’s heads swivel in his direction.  Oh, okay, so he got the puffer fish face from Clark.  

“Human and Kryptonian DNA, while closely similar, are incompatible.  The problem with creating a Kryptonian clone, going by the initial lab reports, was stabilizing Clark’s DNA.  A solution posited had been to combine his DNA with that of a human’s.  They tried using Lionel’s at first, but the combination was not viable.” 

“Since my father realized he couldn’t create the ‘perfect son’, he decided that a grandson would be just as good.  So he used his daughter’s anomalous mutant DNA instead.”  Kon’s sort of freaked by how calm Liz Luthor is about everything.  Man, she and the Bat could go rounds with a rock in a stoicism contest. 

“But the reports I’d managed to find –”

“You know how good my father is at spinning his web of lies, Clark.”  

Clark turns to Batman.  “And you knew?”

Okay, it is never a good thing when the Big Blue gets all self-righteous. 

Luthor draws Clark’s attention back to her.  “I asked him to keep it private.”

Clark’s face is turning puce. “Why?” 

Luthor shrugs.  “I had to know that you would take care of him and would keep on protecting him.  I couldn’t predict your reaction if you’d found out.”

Clark’s glaring so hard that Kon’s afraid he might fry Luthor where she stands.  “Nice to know you’re still the same lying, manipulative bitch, Liz.” 

Luthor nods in acknowledgment before turning to Kon.  Kon’s still in shock over how badass his mom – his fucking _mom_ , wow, he’s got a mom – is, that he almost doesn’t answer when she asks him, “So, Kon, where do you want to go?”

And it’s not as if he needs to, because of course, Batman would interrupt with, “What makes you think he knows what’s best?” 

To be closely followed by Clark’s, “This was your plan all along?  To get him to go with you?  So you can use him like Lionel did?”

Luthor whips around to look at Clark and says icily, “I am not my father.  Don’t you dare assume that I would use my child against you, or anyone else, for that matter.”  

Kon’s kind of taken aback that Clark looks a bit ashamed.

“Still, it remains that Superboy cannot, by his own volition, determine which place is safe enough to house both him and his powers.” 

Luthor redirects her gaze to Batman.  “He isn’t some recalcitrant pet you’re deciding to send away.  He’s a young man, and by all rights, nearly of legal age.  He's capable enough of deciding for himself.”

Kon is wondering if he can somehow inherit that bored aloofness Luthor wears around herself like a shield (that would be so fucking awesome) that he misses it when Clark, Batman and Luthor all turn to him to for his decision. 

“Kon?” Clark prods.

Kon should really stop using his puffer face.  “Uh, well…” He scratches the back of his head.  “I really do appreciate the offer, Ms. Luthor,” the first words he’ll ever say to his mom and he sounds like a complete tool, “but I guess I’d have to say thanks, but no thanks?  I mean, you seem really cool and all, but I, well, I don’t really know you all that well and I’d be dumping all my problems on you and that’s way not cool.” 

He looks up to gauge her reaction, but she’s just nodding along like it’s what she’d expected.  Which is way weird even though he can’t see her ever being caught off-guard.

“I know that the Fortress is the best place for me – ” 

Luthor interjects.  “Martha wouldn’t approve of that solution.  Even I know that, Clark.”  Kon shoots her a look of confusion and Clark’s about to protest when she adds, “The farm would be best, I should think.  Smallville’s been overlooking idiosyncrasies since time immemorial and the farm’s isolated - the very epitome of ‘the middle of nowhere’.  I’m astonished that your mother didn’t offer, Clark.”

All hail Empress Luthor.  Kon’s maybe sort of miffed that he didn’t inherit any of the cool genes.  He wasn’t even part of the genetic lottery!  Those scientists could’ve given him more Liz Luthor characteristics.  Oh, wait, she’s the one bringing in all the crazy into the equation… 

Clark narrows his eyes at her before gritting out, “She did offer.”

Luthor nods.  “Well, that’s settled then.”

She moves further into the Batcave, Batman following her.  Kon makes a move to go after them when Clark places a heavy hand on his shoulder.  “We better go.” 

Wait, that’s it?  After all the melodrama and the reveal of his secret heritage being a double twist and whatever, they’re just leaving?

Clark forcefully guides him out of the Batcave and into the sky, in the direction of the farm and Kon thinks, yeah, that’s it. 

*

He’s been doing more chores than he’s ever had in the couple of years he’d been living at the farm.  He doesn’t even have to be asked, most of the time.  He used to hate doing them; now, he doesn’t exactly like them but they give him something to do.  Something constant and routine.  And sometimes, he doesn’t have to think about what he’d been made to do, what he’d done, what he’s capable of doing. 

Ma Kent tries to comfort him, baking him his favorite treats, bringing him milk and cookies when she sees his light on at night.  She tells him that everything’s going to be okay, that they understand it wasn’t him that did those things, that his friends know it too.

What she doesn’t get is how it feels to be living with a pressing weight over you.  Knowing that what you thought you were supposed to be, what you were intended for, was a lie.  That your entire life was a lie.  That the truth is you weren’t made to help people, you were made to hurt them. 

No one can help who their parents are, but whatever they do with the rest of their lives, that’s up to them.  No one can dictate that.

It’s different for him.  He isn’t even a real person, not in the absolute sense.  He wasn’t born; he was made.  Like a tool, a weapon, Batman said.  Can a gun ever be anything else but a thing that kills people? 

Pa Kent knows.  He’s always so wary whenever he looks at Kon now.  It’s gotten to the extent that he doesn’t even spout platitudes anymore, doesn’t ever ask Kon to do anything. 

Kon’s in the loft, baling hay when he hears the doorbell.  Ma and Pa are out; they went to the market to get some fresh produce for Clark’s weekend visit.  Kon dreads those visits. 

He turns off the machine, takes off his gloves (he doesn’t even know why he wears them, no one ever visits the farm) and heads for the house.  He goes in through the back door and yells, “Coming!”

He can’t see anyone through the screen of the front door.  He uses his X-ray vision but doesn’t see anyone either.  Weird.  He hears a strange vibrating noise.  “If this is a bomb, I am going to be so pissed…” 

He opens the front door and looks down.

It’s a cellphone.  And the buzzing was because someone sent a text message. 

Kon bends down to pick it up.  He reads the message.

>  
> 
> You’re welcome to Luthor Tower anytime.  No expiry date.  Should Smallville become too oppressive (and I’ve every authority in that regard), you’ve a safe haven to turn to.  
>     
>  I’ve programmed myself on your speed dial.  Number 2.  Should you ever need anything.  
>     
>  Liz

 

  
Kon cracks a smile.


End file.
